The historic Ladd Carriage House is now a worthy restaurant mixing Northwest culinary trends with English tradition (and plenty of cocktails).

In the past decade, the 130-year-old Ladd Carriage House has been slated for demolition, saved by preservationists, hoisted and rolled down SW Broadway on a trailer, and, finally, towed back up the street in 2008. Five years later, the Victorian shell has risen as Raven & Rose, a multimillion-dollar project vying for prominence in downtown’s newly vibrant food scene. After all that, this place had betterbe good.

With former Park Kitchen chef David Padberg at the helm, Raven & Rose mixes Portland’s familiar house-made pork terrines, wood-oven heat, and hearty braised meats with a hint of English tradition befitting a carriage house, such as Yorkshire puddings and crumpets. With rabbit, Padberg goes his own way—and you don’t want to miss it. In a garlicky, crisp Caesar salad it turns up confit in luscious strips, and then on a hare-raising plate of “Rabbit Two Ways” its plump, juicy loin medallions and mustard-braised morsels of hindquarter are spooned over creamy kale and a puffed, buttery biscuit. Sweetbreads are done right—crispy on the outside, creamy and bursting with offal flavor on the inside—coddled in a bed of brussels sprout leaves, smoky bacon lardons, and earthy chunks of sunchoke.

In the 80-seat dining room, the carriage-house mood can get lost in generic details and spotty lighting. But a jaunt upstairs to the former hayloft leads to a space dubbed “The Rookery,” which is reason alone to visit Raven & Rose. This more casual, intimate level features a vaulted ceiling, a gaping fireplace, a custom-built soapstone bar, a handsome billiard table, and leather furniture galore. Somewhere between an exclusive clubhouse and a hunting lodge, the bar provides a setting worthy of the building’s illustrious roots—and the thoughtful fare below.